Doubt: A Parable tells the story of the two conflicting worlds in a small New York Catholic school. Tension between the conservative principle and a new priest who is less conservative spirals into a suspicion-filled war of accusations when a young teacher sees something that makes her believe that the new priest has an inappropriate relationship with a student. “What do you do when you’re not sure?” sums up, as well as begins, this riveting and thought-evoking drama that will leave you choosing sides with the characters and doubting even your own conclusions.
Doubt: A Parable began its life off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre club on November 23, 2004, before moving to the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway in 2005. It closed July 2, 2006 after 525 performances. Written by John Patrick Shanley, Doubt was originally done in one act. The original cast said the second half stemmed from the audience's reaction to the play. In its years on and off-Broadway, and then touring the country, Doubt: A Parable has won many awards, including 8 Tony Awards, 5 Drama Desk Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. Its fame became complete when in 2008 Doubt became a feature film directed by the author, John Patrick Shanley, and starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Viola Davis, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Doubt proceeded to be nominated for numerous Academy, BAFTA, Critic’s Choice and Golden Globe awards. Meryl Streep won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role and the cast picked up many other smaller awards as well.
Starring talented veteran actors like Ceal Phelan, Pete Pryor, Elizabeth Webster Duke, and Melanye Finister, Doubt: A Parable at Peoples Light and Theatre will draw you in, force you to choose sides by your beliefs and then make you question your own conclusions.
By: Amanda Brandt
Monday, May 18, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
EGGS ENTRY 5, BY CLAIRE INIE-RICHARDS
(Claire plays the character of Primrose in our production Eggs.)
4.24.2009
Opening! Everything was a success. After an hour of practicing the opening sequence, we discovered the best way to hold the egg is to cradle it from UNDER the burlap. And victorious we were! The show really blossomed (which is what we strive for) and Mark (director) and Y (playwright) were both very pleased. Score!! Now there are four more shows to look forward to this weekend--bon voyage!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
EGGS Entry 4, by Claire Inie-Richards
(Claire plays the character of Primrose in our production Eggs.)
4.22.2009
We had our first preview performance this morning (a 10am, no less) which went tremendously well, and the kids were really great too. It's always a leap of faith doing the show for schools, but they were very well-behaved, and everything ran smoothly. Only one more preview and then on to opening! I think the 10am tricked my brain into thinking we're already open. A rather mean trick, in my opinion. :)
(Claire Inie-Richards as Primrose and Nathaniel Brastow as David. Photo by Mark Garvin.)Friday, April 17, 2009
Eggs Entry 3, By Claire Inie-Richards
(Claire will play the character of Primrose in our upcoming production Eggs.)
4.17.2009
Tonight was the costume run! I love costume runs because it's kind of the final step in putting it all together, and there are lots of discoveries to be made. :) I have three separate costumes--never had so many before!--and two fantastic, beautiful wigs. AHH they are so gorgeous!!!!! The whole cast looks terrific. The costume ladies took good care of us. We ran (and stumbled and meandered through the show) and all in all it went very well. It will be great to have audiences soon, we've been doing it for so long, we've forgotten it's even funny. :)
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Eggs Entry 2, By Claire Inie-Richards
(Claire will play the character of Primrose in our upcoming production Eggs.)
4.8.2009
Photos from rehearsal:
Monday, April 6, 2009
Eggs Entry 1, by Claire Inie-Richards
(Claire will play the character of Primrose in our upcoming production Eggs.)
4.6.2009
We started off the day with a trip over to the theater to check out the stage. We also saw the van, which might I say looks pretty awesome. It's quite literally the last two or so feet of a van. And randomly enough it's from North Carolina. :) Back in rehearsal we spent the remainder of the afternoon finishing the blocking for the last scene, meaning we are now totally blocked and ready to do a complete run-through tomorrow or Wednesday!
(Claire in last season's Getting Near to Baby)Thursday, January 8, 2009
Tea with Cinderella a Smashing Success!
As many of you may know, we held a contest during the run of Cinderella for a group of people to win tickets for the January 4th performance, and have tea with Cinderella herself after the show on the stage. The winner of that contest was Kara Gannon, and she and four friends got to meet and have tea with our very own Cinderella. We have pictures to prove it!
Here we have Kim Carson as Cinderella, happily hosting her very own tea party.
The girls were fascinated by Cinderella's glass slippers, and eventually tried them on themselves.
We think everyone enjoyed themselves, especially those who got to play dressup!
Friday, December 19, 2008
CINDERELLA'S Dame Crashes the NBC 10! Show
Click here to see the Dame from Cinderella crash the NBC 10! show!
Friday, October 17, 2008
Notes from the first Sunday Series event, by Julia Loving.
The Persians and History
Over 80 people gathered in the Main Stage theatre on Sunday afternoon, October 5th to hear a discussion on the background of current production of The Persians—how the play frames history and how history frames the play. Rosaria Munson, Chair of the Department of Classics and Lee Devin, dramaturg, resident company member, and author led an informative and engaging discussion. Dr. Munson, who has written two books and several articles on Herodotus first gave a presentation on the historical context of the play. She said that McLaughlin’s adaptation was very much in the spirit of what the Greek tragedians were doing when they adapted myths to the stage. However, what is unusual about The Persians is that it is based on an actual event—The Battle of Salamis—that happened only eight years prior to the presentation of Aeschylus’ play in 472 BC. Only two other ancient Greek plays that we know of deal with historic subjects. In all three cases, the plays have to do with the confrontation of a Greek city state with foreign invaders.
In 490 BC, the Persian king Darius and his army suffered a terrible defeat at Marathon at the hands of the Athenians. Ten years later, his son Xerxes again sent an army to defeat Athens with the goal of conquering all of Greece and making it part of the Persian Empire. This expedition lasted two years, from 481-479 BC. The Greeks’ astounding victory at the Battle of Salamis was the turning point of the war and the beginning of the ascendancy of Athenian democracy and Western civilization.
Aeschylus and his brother had fought in the Battle of Marathon where his brother died. What is so unusual about the play The Persians is that it is told from the perspective of the defeated Persians, not the victorious Athenians. What would the reaction of the Athenian audience have been to this. Most scholars believe that Aeschylus’ Persians allowed the Athenians to empathize with the defeated Persians. Dr. Munson pointed out that this was very much the tact that Ellen McLaughlin had taken in her adaptation. Her version is not triumphalist but full of compassion.
Dr. Munson said that there is also a much more cynical and less charitable view of how to understand The Persians. It is Edward Said (died 2003), Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, who called The Persians the first “orientalist” document produced by the West. The Greeks, once they had overcome their surprise at their victory over the Persians, reflected on this achievement and came up with several explanations. They theorized that the Persians were punished by the Gods for their hubris.
But, from this viewpoint, there was also another reason for the Persians’ defeat—the Greeks were superior because they were free men, constitutionally governed, relatively poor and therefore hardy, unlike the rich, soft, pampered Persians. Aeschylus’ Persians thus portrayed a polarity between East and West, which would have obliterated any sympathy the Greeks might have felt for the Persians. This is embodied in the play by the example of the two horses in Queen Atossa’s dream—in Aeschylus’ original, they are two women—representing this polarity. Asia is submissive while Europe struggles against the constraints of the bridle. There are also many references to the luxury of the Persians’ lifestyle and to their subservience to their rulers.
Dr. Munson believes that the play speaks to a combination of these aspects. She does not find it jingoistic and instead very nuanced. She said that its subtlety and portrayal of East/West polarity makes modern rewritings of the play particularly interesting.
McLaughlin’s adaptation was commissioned in 2003 just after the U.S. invasion of Iraq by Tony Randall, National Actors Theatre artistic director. Says Munson, “It completely confuses the polarity between East and West.” American viewers who would more readily identify themselves with the Greek ideals of democracy and freedom, instead “find themselves identified in no uncertain terms with an oppressive and Orientalist East.” She added that she found it extremely disturbing that we are “almost denied permission” to identify with the Athenians.
But for Aeschylus’ play to work at all with his Athenian audience, the Athenians had to feel that they were on the right side, that even while they empathized with the suffering of the Persians, the Gods and Justice were on their side.
Lee Devin pointed out that it was a testament to McLaughlin’s fine writing. Instead of offering a “simplistic, moralistic, and contemporarily fashionable” viewpoint, she “simply opens the door” to this really interesting and complex set of ideas. We can’t clearly differentiate between “us” and “them.” The play is about choices made and consequences suffered expressed in language. In other words, “it is going to be the use of language to do stuff.” Having the play situated in Susa where the Persians who were left behind await word of their army—their husbands, fathers, and sons—waging war in distant Greece. Aeschylus and McLaughlin in her adaptation let us experience the Persians’ personal suffering and psychic anguish.
One audience member said that he found it hard to accept that one goal of the play was to make the Greeks empathize with the Persians. Instead, he felt that the play would make the Athenian audience feel great pride in the suffering that their victory had caused to their enemy. He pointed out that war was part of life and not seen as a terrible thing. It was a way to acquire wealth, expand empire, and ensure security. The Athenians went on to create their own empire and were in their own way “casually brutal to those they conquered.”
Another audience member said that he was very moved by the fact that the Persians admitted their part in the tragedy, that it was their hubris that had brought them down. This could serve as a warning to the Athenians that they should not feel too much pride because they too could suffer defeat.
Dr. Munson emphasized that the play is a representation of the Greek imagination of how the Persians responded to their defeat in the Battle of Salamis. This is Greek discourse placed in the mouth of actors. Like the other great Greek tragedies, Aeschylus’ play speaks to us across 2,500 years with startling immediacy. Greek literature has sustained its power. The Greeks were articulate, aware, and analytical. “Everything is expressed,” said Munson. These qualities are not lost in McLaughlin’s remarkable adaptation.
Over 80 people gathered in the Main Stage theatre on Sunday afternoon, October 5th to hear a discussion on the background of current production of The Persians—how the play frames history and how history frames the play. Rosaria Munson, Chair of the Department of Classics and Lee Devin, dramaturg, resident company member, and author led an informative and engaging discussion. Dr. Munson, who has written two books and several articles on Herodotus first gave a presentation on the historical context of the play. She said that McLaughlin’s adaptation was very much in the spirit of what the Greek tragedians were doing when they adapted myths to the stage. However, what is unusual about The Persians is that it is based on an actual event—The Battle of Salamis—that happened only eight years prior to the presentation of Aeschylus’ play in 472 BC. Only two other ancient Greek plays that we know of deal with historic subjects. In all three cases, the plays have to do with the confrontation of a Greek city state with foreign invaders.
In 490 BC, the Persian king Darius and his army suffered a terrible defeat at Marathon at the hands of the Athenians. Ten years later, his son Xerxes again sent an army to defeat Athens with the goal of conquering all of Greece and making it part of the Persian Empire. This expedition lasted two years, from 481-479 BC. The Greeks’ astounding victory at the Battle of Salamis was the turning point of the war and the beginning of the ascendancy of Athenian democracy and Western civilization.
Aeschylus and his brother had fought in the Battle of Marathon where his brother died. What is so unusual about the play The Persians is that it is told from the perspective of the defeated Persians, not the victorious Athenians. What would the reaction of the Athenian audience have been to this. Most scholars believe that Aeschylus’ Persians allowed the Athenians to empathize with the defeated Persians. Dr. Munson pointed out that this was very much the tact that Ellen McLaughlin had taken in her adaptation. Her version is not triumphalist but full of compassion.
Dr. Munson said that there is also a much more cynical and less charitable view of how to understand The Persians. It is Edward Said (died 2003), Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, who called The Persians the first “orientalist” document produced by the West. The Greeks, once they had overcome their surprise at their victory over the Persians, reflected on this achievement and came up with several explanations. They theorized that the Persians were punished by the Gods for their hubris.
But, from this viewpoint, there was also another reason for the Persians’ defeat—the Greeks were superior because they were free men, constitutionally governed, relatively poor and therefore hardy, unlike the rich, soft, pampered Persians. Aeschylus’ Persians thus portrayed a polarity between East and West, which would have obliterated any sympathy the Greeks might have felt for the Persians. This is embodied in the play by the example of the two horses in Queen Atossa’s dream—in Aeschylus’ original, they are two women—representing this polarity. Asia is submissive while Europe struggles against the constraints of the bridle. There are also many references to the luxury of the Persians’ lifestyle and to their subservience to their rulers.
Dr. Munson believes that the play speaks to a combination of these aspects. She does not find it jingoistic and instead very nuanced. She said that its subtlety and portrayal of East/West polarity makes modern rewritings of the play particularly interesting.
McLaughlin’s adaptation was commissioned in 2003 just after the U.S. invasion of Iraq by Tony Randall, National Actors Theatre artistic director. Says Munson, “It completely confuses the polarity between East and West.” American viewers who would more readily identify themselves with the Greek ideals of democracy and freedom, instead “find themselves identified in no uncertain terms with an oppressive and Orientalist East.” She added that she found it extremely disturbing that we are “almost denied permission” to identify with the Athenians.
But for Aeschylus’ play to work at all with his Athenian audience, the Athenians had to feel that they were on the right side, that even while they empathized with the suffering of the Persians, the Gods and Justice were on their side.
Lee Devin pointed out that it was a testament to McLaughlin’s fine writing. Instead of offering a “simplistic, moralistic, and contemporarily fashionable” viewpoint, she “simply opens the door” to this really interesting and complex set of ideas. We can’t clearly differentiate between “us” and “them.” The play is about choices made and consequences suffered expressed in language. In other words, “it is going to be the use of language to do stuff.” Having the play situated in Susa where the Persians who were left behind await word of their army—their husbands, fathers, and sons—waging war in distant Greece. Aeschylus and McLaughlin in her adaptation let us experience the Persians’ personal suffering and psychic anguish.
One audience member said that he found it hard to accept that one goal of the play was to make the Greeks empathize with the Persians. Instead, he felt that the play would make the Athenian audience feel great pride in the suffering that their victory had caused to their enemy. He pointed out that war was part of life and not seen as a terrible thing. It was a way to acquire wealth, expand empire, and ensure security. The Athenians went on to create their own empire and were in their own way “casually brutal to those they conquered.”
Another audience member said that he was very moved by the fact that the Persians admitted their part in the tragedy, that it was their hubris that had brought them down. This could serve as a warning to the Athenians that they should not feel too much pride because they too could suffer defeat.
Dr. Munson emphasized that the play is a representation of the Greek imagination of how the Persians responded to their defeat in the Battle of Salamis. This is Greek discourse placed in the mouth of actors. Like the other great Greek tragedies, Aeschylus’ play speaks to us across 2,500 years with startling immediacy. Greek literature has sustained its power. The Greeks were articulate, aware, and analytical. “Everything is expressed,” said Munson. These qualities are not lost in McLaughlin’s remarkable adaptation.
Monday, October 6, 2008
A successful College Night!
This past Thursday was "College Night" at the theatre. We invited college students and professors to see The Persians, and held a talk-back after the show, followed by a small reception for everyone who stayed. For those of you who don't know, a talk-back is where the audience is invited to stay after the performance, and the actors come back out onto the stage to answer questions. It's entertaining and informative, and we get a lot of great questions. The student audience was no different, and below you'll find a summary of some of the questions that were asked.
After the talk-back, we invited everyone into the lower lobby for refreshments, and the actors came out to mingle with the crowd.
- Elizabeth Pool (Resident Dramaturg and host of the talk-back): Tell us what you will talk about on the ride home tonight. What moments, images, costumes stuck with you?
Audience member: The way the play resonated with our times. The hubris can be compared to the United States, both now and in Vietnam. - Audience member: Were there really women counselors?
Actor 1: Yes! No. I’ve been waiting for someone to ask that question! There was one woman warrior that Heroditus mentions. She disguised herself as a Greek and took down one of their ships. He said “My women act like men and my men act like women”
Actor 2: Persian women ran businesses, owned land, and had money that was separate from their husbands. They were pretty liberated.
- Audience member: This play portrays Darius as very sympathetic.
Actor 1: Darius was pretty enlightened. He didn’t try to take away the belief systems of the countries he conquered.
Actor 2: It started with Cyrus. He was conquering other lands, but he would let them stay multi-ethnic, multi cultural. Different nations under Persia. It was like that until Xerxes.
- Audience Member: Is the play more about the Persian Tragedy or the Athenian triumph?
Actors: Aeschylus fought in two major battles and his brother died in the first. What’s amazing to me is that just a few years later he turned around and wrote this play. And he wrote it just when Athens was thinking about becoming more like Persia. It was a cautionary tale.
- Audience member: Can you talk about the deconstruction and interaction of the chorus? And you were all so descriptive with your bodies.
Actor 1: Part of the acting challenge was the heightened language. Our director didn’t want us to talk out to the audience in classical Greek style automatically. Maybe ten days into the rehearsal, she turned down the lights to get us to just talk to each other. So it’s not GREEK TRAGEDY. So we would communicate as much as possible.
Actor 2: Aeschylus wrote this as a chorus, and so did Ellen MacLaughlin. The first director divided it into chambers of the cabinet.
____________________________________
After the talk-back, we invited everyone into the lower lobby for refreshments, and the actors came out to mingle with the crowd.
In this picture, you can see (from left to right): Miriam Hyman (The Herald), Nancy Shaw (Director of Education at PLTC), Mark Hairston (Xerxes), and the back of Kevin Bergen (The Chairman). The entire cast made an appearance, and it was interesting to watch them continue the talk-back in the form of one-on-one conversations with the audience members.
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